Surprisingly, I was torn to see the Erdtree Capital in ruin. Oh, certainly, I had wished to ruin it myself. But from the ashes would have arisen something newer, stronger. We, who had known servitude, would build a world free of Gods and Lords.
And here I was, playing at king because we had nothing better. Here I was, gazing over poisoned ashes which would grow nothing.
Our guide led us beneath the ash and melted stone. Through a well, we found the scorched tunnels where the Omens had been left to squabble over scraps. I wondered how far a people needed to fall before they would cast out their own children like this. Still lower we traveled, to the unlocked chamber where the Frenzied Flame had held its oracle with traitors to the Erdtree. Still further down.
Beneath the Erdtree was a chasm seemingly without end. It stank of the burnt tree, stagnant water, and all the dead things which had fallen from above. We clambered cautiously over blackened and cracking roots. Still lower, still lower.
We had not reached the true bottom, but the roots ended at a false bottom. All the ash from above had formed a beach here, against a stagnant and wholly dead marsh. Grey dunes rolled before us, winding through a grey lake.
Our guide pointed toward the bottomless depths we had travled over. The surface of the "void" shimmered. Silently, a great monster rose from the inky substance. My bodyguard turned his sword at the assassin, but I ordered him halt.
The monster had golden bangles which shone with holy light. Even I recognized the golden hair that poured from the mouth of its grotesque clam-head and the tattered robes which covered its rotting, half-fish body.
Godwyn the Golden. The child of Marika who had tried to make peace with the peoples she had trampled. First of the Dead in that age of immortality.